52 Content Marketing Experts Share Their Top 100 Content Tips

What made you click through to read this post (unless you’re reading this via RSS and already know what’s coming)?

Was it because you’ve read other posts of mine, and trust me to deliver on the premise shared wherever that might be? Was it because someone shared it on Twitter, Facebook, etc., and you trust their shares, so you automatically share too?

Or was it because of the headline, and the easy quick-fix yet often vapid information that headline suggested?

If it was any of the above, you’ve just been suckered – yet we allow ourselves to fall for this kind of click-and-bait trap all the time.

This isn’t really anything new – newspapers have been trying to outdo each other with creative headlines for years, to garner the sale from the rushed commuter over the competitor’s publication.

The problem is, the success of headline attraction and clickbaiting isn’t just turning consumers of content into lazy sharers, it’s also turning the content creators into frauds that care only for eyeballs, versus providing the quality content these same eyeballs clicked over for in the first place.

It’s not just bloggers desperate for traffic either – it’s so-called reputable publications that are falling into this malaise. You only need to look at the crappy Forbes “Top 50 Social Media Influencers” list that makes the rounds every year (sometimes more frequently).

When the author of these posts admits there’s no real science behind the list, and it’s essentially based on how noisy these “influencers” are online, you know the traffic whores have won.

We Deserve What We Click

If you clicked on this post with no prior knowledge of my content, and whether it’d either be a fit for you or, more importantly, actually deliver on the headline’s promise – why?

If it was because of the headline only, how often have you been disappointed by the subsequent content that failed to discuss what the headline promised?

If it was because you reshared it from someone whose other content you frequently reshare without reading, don’t you ever wonder what it is you’re recommending to your followers, and how they’ll perceive you if the content is crap?

If it was because it somehow ended up in one of the automatic curation tools you use to share content, when did you last vet the content and make sure it was the stuff you wanted to be associated with?

If you recognize any of the reasons above, is that really something you want to continue being known for? Has quality control really disappeared, and now you just want your own shares to be reshared because the title looks sexy, and the more reshares your own shares get will make you an “influencer”?

If so, be careful what you wish for – there’s only so much wool you can pull over peoples’ eyes before they get wise to you.

We frequently complain about the quality of the content on the web today, and how a lot of it sucks compared to “the golden age of blogging” 5+ years ago.

The thing is, if we’re sharing and clicking crappy content filled with lies and false promises, we’re simply reinforcing the value of that crap and its raison d’etre.

Be better than that – your audience deserves more.

An experiment for you – click the tweetable below, and then see how many of your friends/connections retweet it. Then ask them if they read the piece first. See how many fall into the 80/20 headline rule.

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